June 23, 2011

Chris Greaves posted this link, which should be a warning to everyone to be (even more) careful about your online reputation:

Camille Cacnio, a part-time receptionist at a car dealership, was caught in a 3-second video clip, stealing clothing from a looted store during the Stanley Cup riots.

She was fired.

Professional mountain biker Alex Prochazka posed in front of a burning car, while wearing a T-shirt from his sponsor Oakley.

The sunglass company promptly dropped him.

Carpenter Connor Mcilvenna declared the riots “awesome” on his Facebook page, and posted several pro-riot status updates, such as “atta boy vancity!!! show em how we do it!!!” and “vancouver needed remodeling anyway….”

RiteTech Construction was listed as his employer on his Facebook profile, and the next morning, Mcilvenna was fired.

His boss said he was flooded with emails and didn’t want the company’s reputation linked to the man.

“I think this will be a turning point in how employers look at social media,” said Peter Eastwood, a partner at Borden Ladner Gervais in Vancouver. “This is an extremely powerful tool that has potentially enormous and immediate consequences for a business.”

This is something the early bloggers had to face, that what you post online (or what is posted about you) will be there forever. No rational employer is going to offer you a job in future without at the very least running a Google search on you, and there’s already a niche market for employers to explore (doing a deeper search on prospective employees). Background check and personal references? I’m starting to wonder why employers even bother going through the motions any more.